Star Lore Art The Farnese Atlas 2nd Century AD

The Farnese Atlas is the oldest known representation of the classical Greek constellations and the oldest know presentation of the celestial spheres.

It is a seven feet tall marble statue of the Greek Titan Atlas, who in Greek mythology was to hold up the sky for eternity. The sphere representing the sky is 26 inches in diameter. It is named after Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, who later became Pope Paul III. He acquired the sculpture in the early 16th century and exhibited it in the Farnese Palace in Rome. The globe depicts 41 of the 48 classical Greek constellations distinguished by Ptolemy, making it, as Ian Ridpath puts it, "our only firsthand look at the star pictures that the ancient Greeks imagined in the sky." Historians believe the sculpture was probably made in Rome around the second century AD as a copy of a Greek original. There are conflicting theories of when the original was made. The globe shows no individual stars, but it displays geographical lines like the equator and the ecliptic allowing astronomers to calculate the time period during which the constellations were in the positions showed on the globe, based on the precession of the equinox. With that calculation, many astronomers arrived at the time of Hipparchus, who around 129 BC created a star catalogue, containing the positions of at least 850 stars. Others, however, date the original back to the time of Aratus, who around 270 BC wrote Phenomena, a poetic description of the constellations and other celestial phenomena. Artists argue that the sculpture should not be seen as a precise astronomical chart but should be appreciated as piece of art, showing how the ancient Greeks imagined the gods putting the stories of their mythology into the stars.

Source: zen.yandex.ru

Sources: Farnese Atlas, Ian Ridpath, italianways.com, electrummagazine.com Below are a few images taken from italianways.com, showing the statue and especially the globe from different angles.

In 2017, astronomer Susanne M. Hoffmann combined her own drawings of the Farnese Atlas and the starry sky as seen by Hipparchos to one projection in the Zeiss Major Planetarium in Berlin. In my oppinion a perfect combination of astronomy and art! Source: Uhura Uraniae

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